Hurricane Katrina Relief Charities - December 2005
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Featured charities and funds this month relating to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts are:
LOUISIANA'S OFFICIAL HURRICANE KATRINA RELIEF FUND
FAMILY-TO-FAMILY - Helping Katrina Families
PASADO'S SAFE HAVEN - Katrina Animal Relief
LOUISIANA'S OFFICIAL HURRICANE KATRINA RELIEF FUND
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The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation has been established in order to help provide assistance to our citizens in need through a network of Louisiana charities, non-profit and governmental agencies, including clearinghouses like the Louisiana VOAD (Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster).
The Foundation is also designed to support long-term family restoration and recovery by focusing on education, housing, health care, legal assistance and jobs for Louisiana families whose lives have been altered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
By postal mail, please make donations payable to Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, Inc. and mail to:
Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation
c/o Division of Administration
P.O. Box 94095
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9095
The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation is now accepting donations. Please visit their site to make an online donation or mail your check to the address above, or call the number below.
The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation qualifies for nonprofit status and exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, as approved by the IRS. Fed. Tax ID No. 20-3399944
Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation
DONATION HOTLINE:
1-877-HELP-LA-1 (1-877-435-7521)
Callers outside the U.S., please dial 678-813-4209
This website has been established to provide the latest information and resources regarding relief and assistance provided by the state government for citizens impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Official Website: http://katrina.louisiana.gov/
FAMILY-TO-FAMILY
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Family-to-Family is a not-for-profit hunger relief program for profoundly poor and hungry families in the US. The program, which is community based, connects families with more with families who have less. Each month the "sponsoring" family prepares a box of food for shipment to their own "adopted" family.
Additionally, each month "the community" of sponsors sends clothing, books, medicines etc. to the adopted community's food pantry for general distribution.
Family-to-Family is a tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting families with more to families with less. The program creates a bridge between affluent suburban communities and some of our country's most impoverished areas. With no agenda other than helping fellow citizens, Family-to-Family taps into a vast reservoir of stored generosity.
Duffel bags, soft fabric suitcases or even fabric laundry bags are needed by families devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita as they move whatever possessions they have back to their homes or move on to new homes. In these upcoming months as the hardest hit areas are rebuilt, people will begin to return home from temporary housing. Their challenge to re-build their lives will be enormous. They will desperately be in need of basic essentials: clothing, cold weather clothing, sheets, towels, pillows and blankets, over the counter medications, eyeglasses . . . everything! ALL basic living essentials will be needed, from clean and new packs of fresh underwear to household appliances.
The list is long, but here's what your family can do to help! Adopt a Hurricane Katrina victim's family, helping them as they set up a new home.
HERE'S HOW IT WORKS
To get started, complete the form on their website http://www.family-to-family.org/ and they will contact you with information about your adopted family. Family-to-family has received extensive lists of families in need from government agencies, shelters and social service agencies working throughout the Gulf region. They will match your family with a family in need and they are hoping that your family will commit to helping for 3-6 months.
Family-to-Family members welcome the concrete responsibility of shopping for, packing, and sending a carton of fundamental necessities to a family they "adopt." Husbands, wives and children in blessed corners of the world are eager to link themselves, over time, to moms, dads and kids living in abject poverty. They share the sentiment of anthropologist Margaret Mead, who once said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world."
Just as a strong fence makes for good neighbors, the physical distance between donors and recipients creates a heightened sense of intimacy. Family-to-Family participants are simply good neighbors…living many miles apart.
Family-to-Family started as a result of Pembroke’s sad story. Today, 64 families in Hastings and 16 families in Rye/Mamaroneck NY are connected to 80 families in Pembroke. Each month, families in New York shop for food basics and send cartons filled with groceries and love, to Illinois. From this beginning Family-to-Family has grown to 375 sponsor families supporting 13 needy communities in 8 states with monthly box shipments.
In addition, there are supplemental monthly drives for necessities such as cold-weather clothing and bedding, toys during the holiday season, and over-the-counter cold medications.
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The following is a written statement from Pam Koner, the Found of Family-to-Family.
Background info: Family-to-Family has been helping families in profound poverty on a monthly basis for 3 1/2 years.
My name is Pam Koner a Westchester County mom and the founder of an all volunteer grass roots organization called Family-to-Family (www.family-to-family.org ). We are roughly 500 families across the US that have linked to/adopted over 480 profoundly poor American families living in third world like conditions in our country. We send, (Fed Ex is our sponsor and ships over 500 boxes @ 35 pounds each pro bono each month) basic non-perishable food stuffs, basic essentials like clothing, blankets, tooth paste and tooth brushes, over the counter medications to name a few of our monthly drives every month.
9/11 families contact me to join on and help victims of Katrina/Rita.
Using the same protocol one family to another family, I came up with a plan to help Katrina/Rita survivors. The idea is a simple one: we link families in need with families that want to help..help in a different more involved way..without writing a check....and last week I was contacted by Allison Vadhan, daughter of a Flight 93 (went down in Pennsylvania..after passengers fought back terrorists). Ms. Vadhan (see attached email from her) asked me if she and a few other families could help..help give back t American families that gave them so much in their time of need.
As families are leaving shelters and moving into permanent housing we are helping them with the basic essentials needed to put a "home" back together. Families are moving into empty apartments save for a few pieces of furniture..not a sheet, towel, pillow, blanket, tea pot, plate or cup..no clothing to speak of..over the counter medications..basic essentials to get by. That's where "IT'S IN THE BAG" Family-to-Family's Disaster Relief Effort comes in.
I have placed/linked over 750 families in the last month ..having received info about families in need from shelters all over the gulf region, the Houston Housing Authority, Red Cross, FEMA and the LA. Dept of Social Services. My phone rings endlessly with families in need looking for help once they are out of the system and living on their own...and each story more disturbing than the next.. To hear the depression and isolation in these families voices is hard to bare. These are the poorest victims..with nothing. We're calling our "bag" a "bag of hope"..that's what the folks we're helping have dubbed it! The protocol is this: I collect the family info on both the giving and receiving end..make the match via email to the helping family..they send a soft duffle bag, backpack etc. with a 4 part questionnaire to the receiving family, a letter of intro, a self addressed stamped return envelope back to sponsor (all downloaded from our website) and..a pen. We ask the family to fill it out once they arrive in housing and send it back to their sponsoring family..and then the boxes begin to arrive.
I have over 300 families waiting for help..having been asked by FEMA to help the over 300 families coming off of the cruise ship docked in the Gulf. We are the next phase..making a home a home, my family-to-your-family. Our mission is to keep helping these families for a period of 3-6 months after they enter housing...to stay connected..to letter write.. to create "family" even with strangers 1000 miles away...
Best,
Pam Koner
Family-to-Family
email: famtofamily@aol.com
Letter's to me from 9/11 families:
* We are a 9/11 family . . . we lost our mother on UA Fl 93 which crashed in Shanksville, Pa on 9/11/2001 while passengers & crew fought the hijackers. So many Americans came to our aid, sent cards, sent donations, gave encouraging prayers & letters in the days after. Now it is our turn to pass on to others in need what we unexpectedly received four years ago. It is the American way to give back when the opportunity arises. This is what we need to teach our children so that they will know the same when we are long gone.
* We are a family of 3 kids, my husband & I are health care providers: 2 girls: 5y(kindergarten) & 9y (4th grade) & 1 boy: 12y (7th grade). We'd like to sponsor a family with children--we'd like to make a difference to a family with kids.
* I may have other FL 93 families who might join in helping our adopted Katrina family. It is my goal to have our non-profit organization, Families of Flight 93, Inc. sponsor at least one family in hope of making a difference to people who, here and now, need help.
* The only request I have is that our adopted family knows who we are, that represent the heroic flight that fought back on 9/11 and that now it is our turn to help face another disaster.
Family-to-Family
P.O. Box 255
Hastings-On-Hudson, NY 10706
email: famtofamily@aol.com
web: http://www.family-to-family.org/
PASADO'S SAFE HAVEN
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Pasado's Safe Haven was one of the first and has been one of the finest Hurricane Katrina animal rescue organizations taking part in the effort in the Gulf. Here is some information about their organization.
Pasado's Safe Haven is one of the premiere animal rescue organizations in the United States dedicated to 24-hour rescue and rehabilitation of dogs, cats, and farm animals. Pasado's Safe Haven has waged numerous prosecutions against animal abusers, winning major convictions. Pasado's Safe Haven offers rewards, through the media, to seek out and prosecute those who have committed heinous acts of animal cruelty.
Pasado's Safe Haven is dedicated to new and vigorous methods to reduce pet overpopulation. Pasado's Safe Haven sponsors The Spay Station, the first mobile spay/neuter clinic in Washington State. This state-of-the-art "clinic on wheels" offers free spay/neuter services to the pets of the low-income, to whom most unwanted litters of dogs and cats are born.
Every year, hundreds of visitors tour Pasado's Safe Haven, where animals who have been rescued from severe neglect and abuse live out their lives in peace. Many people volunteer or sponsor our rescued animals by "adopting" them. It's a great way to help provide feed and veterinary care for an animal who once had no hope.
Pasado's Safe Haven
P.O. Box 171
Sultan, WA 98294
email: mail@pasadosafehaven.org
web: http://pasadosafehaven.org/
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